


In the Dark

by missmichellebelle



Series: Princes Don't Marry Kitchen Boys [3]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Budding Love, Denial of Feelings, Epiphanies, Feelings, Friends to Lovers, Introspection, Kitchen Boy Mickey, M/M, Prince Ian, Princes & Princesses, Royalty, Servants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 01:50:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4647741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmichellebelle/pseuds/missmichellebelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Funny, really, how the older they get, the less Ian seems to be aware of the disparaging distance between them, while Mickey just becomes more and more conscious of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Sarah prompted me **gallavich, things you didn’t say at all** over on [tumblr](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com) and for some reason that made me go, "OH OBVIOUSLY THIS FITS WITH MY ROYAL AU." idk man idk.
> 
> takes place a month or two after the previous fic. mainly just Mickey thinking like. way too much.
> 
> end of my hiatus? MAYBE???? one can hope, right?

Mickey can’t sleep. Not that a lack of sleeping is a rare occurrence, but normally that’s because a certain prince is keeping him up long past lights out—which is a fucking pain, when he’s called to rise just before dawn each morning. But there’s nothing to distract Mickey from sleep this night. Nothing except his own mind, that is.

He grunts in frustration, tossing and turning as if the movement will somehow quiet his whirring thoughts long enough for him to fall asleep. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t fucking work, just as it hasn’t worked the last several weeks. Mickey glares at the darkness above him, obscuring the smoke stained ceiling of the kitchen he knows is there, and wishes that sleep were a physical being so he could beat it into submission. _Weeks_ this has been going on now. _Weeks_ has he rested fitfully, the itch of a question that he’s chosen to ignore burning hot and insistent at the base of his skull.

He flops onto his side and glares out at the darkness instead, as if its the source of his wakefulness. He knows it’s fucking not, but any acknowledgement past that is not something Mickey is willing to consider.

That’s his fucking problem. Mickey isn’t a _dweller_. He doesn’t overthink things, but takes them at face value, preferring any lingering suspicions to whatever he might gleam from deep reflection. Mickey _hates_ deep reflection. He hates the idea of nuances in someone’s speech, or movements, to the point where they slip off of him like rain water on a tin roof. If someone has something to say to him, they should just fucking _say_ it.

It’s one of the things he and Ian argue about. Well, that _Ian_ argues about. Something about how Mickey never speaks with his words, that his entire way of communicating is through the nuances of his movements and his word choices, and how he’s a _fucking hyprocrite_. That’s when Ian’s frustration will flare, hot and goading and if things were different, maybe Mickey would rise to the challenge. Maybe he would put his knuckles where all of Ian’s angry words are. As it is, Ian is a prince, and Mickey is no one, and as much as Mickey clenches his teeth and his fists, that doesn’t change that. It doesn’t change the fact that should Mickey ever forget himself, should he say what he wants and act on every instinct he had as if Ian were another dirty urchin like himself, his punishment would most likely be just short of death. King Frank, as moronic a king as he is, has certainly killed people for less severe crimes.

So instead of lashing back at Ian, he becomes complacent. Cloying. Every bit the obedient, aloof, fearful servant that he’s expected to be. Mickey thinks it works even better than his fists, because Ian _hates_ it. He hates any reminder of the gap between their classes, and it’s too fucking easy for Mickey to take advantage of it and use it against him.

Funny, really, how the older they get, the less Ian seems to be aware of the disparaging distance between them, while Mickey just becomes more and more conscious of it.

He think of the ball, that stupid _fucking_ ball, which is where this all started. The reason he lays in bed for hours, squinting into the darkness, trying to clear his mind rather than think too long or too hard about that particular night—what was said, what was done, what it all meant.

How in two short years, another ball will be held in Ian’s honor, and how Mickey wouldn’t be surprised if the King immediately threw Ian into some bullshit betrothal that removed him to some obscure, far away, impoverished country. After all, his dislike for Ian is no secret.

Mickey’s throat feels tight, and he growls against it, like his anger will dissipate the feeling, and tosses onto his back once more.

He wonders, briefly, if Ian would take him along, and then scowls at the thought, as if it didn’t come out of his own head. What a stupid fucking notion. Ian might be his friend, but what use would a run-of-the-mill kitchen boy be? The only reason he works in the talent is because his father owed a debt, and the only way to pay it was Mickey’s servitude. He belongs to the crown until the debt is paid, or until he dies. Whichever comes first.

Mickey knows it will be his death.

He wonders if Ian would be happier, far away from the capital, the country, his father. He’d miss his siblings, Mickey knows, and he has a guilt complex as large as the sea itself that would plague him for abandoning his kingdom in its current state. Ian is fiercely loyal and annoyingly good-intentioned. If there was a war to be fought, Mickey is sure Ian would be that god damned knight in shining armor that all the fairy tales talk of, but maybe it’s that compulsion of Ian that would have him take up the mantle of another kingdom entirely.

Or perhaps he will live his fairy tale out properly. Meet his bride at his ball, dance the night into the morning, and then announce an engagement far too quickly the way most royals do. Mickey doesn’t believe in love—has never seen it, and doesn’t put stock in things he can’t see—so maybe it really does happen that quickly, but he’s always been skeptical. Then again, Ian’s head is full of romantic notions, so it wouldn’t be fucking surprising if he decided to marry after one night of twirling some princess around the ballroom.

 _I have no interest in dancing with the ladies of the court_.

Mickey slams his eyes shut, and tries to shove the thought—Ian’s words—back into the recesses of his mind, where he’s been keeping them chained down and isolated to the best of his ability. He grits his teeth, focuses on the darkness, tries to paint his mind black, blank, empty.

_How about you dance with me, instead?_

It was stupid. So fucking stupid. Mickey doesn’t dance, _didn’t_ dance. What they did wasn’t dancing, it was Ian dragging him around the kitchen after a long day of work, Mickey’s body loose and clumsy with exhaustion, brain addled from exhaustion and Mandy’s surprise appearance. But Ian had grinned like the fucking maniac that he is, reforming Mickey’s arms every time they would become limp noodles, and amused as he tried to get Mickey to step in time with him to nothing but the sound of Ian’s laughter and Mickey’s complaints.

Mickey’s hand finds his hip, and he feels like he can still feel the phantom of Ian’s hand there, even though there are no marks or signs that Ian had ever even touched him.

He still doesn’t understand why. Ian had called it practice, but Mickey was hardly a worthy partner, and Ian was the finest dancer in the palace already. Mickey had watched him twirl Mandy, who’s dancing expertise ended at the way she used to stomp around their kitchen as a girl, like she was a true lady, like she was born dancing those steps. They had made quite a pair, and not just because one of the crown princes had been dancing with a girl with no name, no title, no nothing.

 _I have no interest in dancing with ladies of the court_.

Is that what he’d meant? That he preferred to dance with commoners?

Mickey scowls, and is close to punching himself in the face because he’d rather be _unconscious_ than deal with all the shit churning about in his head like a new batch of butter. The only thing that stops him is the creak of the kitchen door as it opens, and Mickey doesn’t even have to look to know who has come to disturb him at this time of night.

“Mick?” Ian whispers into the darkness, and Mickey can hear the soft soles of his night shoes pad against the stone of the kitchen floor as he comes closer. “Are you asleep?”

Mickey almost pretends that he is, but knows that lying still in bed will just make it harder to battle his thoughts. He sighs heavily instead, turning so his body is facing where Ian looms over him.

“Yeah,” he grumbles, annoyed at how his voice comes out thick with sleep when he hasn’t slept a wink.

“You’re up late,” Ian comments, settling down on the cot near Mickey’s knees. The urge to slam one into Ian’s back is strong—the cot isn’t that fucking big, after all—because Ian is the cause of all of this. _Stupid fucking nuanced prince_.

“The fuck do you call what you’re doing, huh?” Mickey retorts, finally cracking an eye open. Ian doesn’t have a lantern with him, as he usually does, and all Mickey can make out is a faint silhouette in the darkness.

Ian fidgets, making the cot rock beneath them, and Mickey is close to pushing him off when he says, “I couldn’t sleep.”

 _That makes two of us_ , Mickey thinks darkly.

“So you thought you’d keep both of us up?” Mickey shoves at Ian’s back very gently, just enough to rock him forward. “Asshole,” he sneers, too tired to make it sound honest.

“I just…” Ian starts fidgeting again, and seriously, Mickey knows he’s not going to fall asleep anyway, but that doesn’t mean he’s enjoying Ian’s impersonation of a struck tuning fork.

“Just fucking spit it out and stop rocking my bed already, for fuck’s sake,” Mickey grumbles, and Ian’s body stills—in recognition of his fidgeting or shock, Mickey doesn’t know. Doesn’t really care, to be perfectly honest.

“You’re of marrying age,” is what Ian finally says, and it’s such a strange statement that Mickey actually works on keeping his eyes open and staring incredulously at Ian’s back.

“What?”

“You—your birthday. I didn’t even realize. You’re of age now, to marry,” Ian says, voice oddly tentative. “Was that, I mean… Are you?”

Mickey is too tired for this shit. He almost wishes Ian were angry, because then at least he spits out what he means to say and doesn’t do this dancing-around-it bullshit.

His hip gives a strange, reminding pulse, and he almost punches himself to make it shut the fuck up.

“Am I _what?_ ” Mickey hisses, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Going to… To find a wife. To marry,” Ian clarifies, and Mickey wishes it wasn’t so dark. Not because he wants to be able to see Ian’s face, or the expression there, or anything stupid like that, but just so Ian could appreciate the incredulous glare that Mickey is sending his way.

“You think I want to get _married?_ ” Mickey spits in surprise, and the only way Mickey knows Ian has turned his head is because he can suddenly see the shape of his profile, the definition of his nose and the sharpness of his jaw. “To _who?_ ”

The question hangs in the silence for too long.

“I-I don’t know. One of the kitchen maids, or one of my sister’s handmaidens, or…” Ian’s words falter and stop, and Mickey has no idea where this conversation came from.

“ _No_. Fuck. I already have to look after you and your family’s dumb asses, why would I want to add a wife to that list? Never mind that the Steward would probably spit in my face if I asked for such a luxury. My getting married doesn’t exactly benefit anyone, myself included. Good riddance. I would make a horrible fucking husband.”

 _You’d make a much better one_ , is what Mickey thinks but doesn’t say, will _never_ say. Shit. He’s considering punching himself in the face again.

“No, you wouldn’t.” Ian’s voice comes out on a breath, hardly more than a whisper, and Mickey can just see the shine of some unknown light source reflecting off Ian’s eyes in the darkness as they look at him, and Mickey’s entire chest seizes up like like water turning to ice in the winter.

He says nothing, flips onto his back and ignores Ian’s words—every single one of them, every thing he’s ever spoken, _fuck_ —and stares at the darkness.

The cot shifts, and he feels the gentle touch of Ian’s hand on his arm. It’s too warm.

“Can I stay here for a bit?” Ian asks, the question unsure as it comes out of his mouth, and Mickey swallows, blinks, swallows again.

_—no interest—_

“If you get caught—”

“I won’t,” Ian says quickly, voice filled with a confidence that had been absent since he entered the kitchens. “I’ll leave before the Steward even thinks of waking.”

Mickey knows there’s no way Ian can make such a promise, but he doesn’t say anything. Shrugs against the cot, and turns to face away from Ian, eyes closed and face pinched in confusion and a strange discomfort that he’s not familiar with.

_—ladies—_

Ian reads Mickey’s silence—his nuances, or what-the-fuck-ever Ian calls them—and then stretches out on the cot beside him, the length of him pressed into Mickey’s back because the cot is in no way big enough to hold two nearly full grown men. It’s just his shoulder, his arm, the side of his leg, but then Ian shifts and his hand comes to rest on Mickey’s hip in that _same fucking spot_ , the rest of his body so close that Mickey can feel the heat if not the actual touch.

_—how about you—_

Mickey’s breath catches in his chest, and he feels Ian’s breath drag across the back of his neck, and the itch at the back of his mind has grown into a large, glass orb just in time for it to shatter and leave a haunting sense of clarity over Mickey’s thoughts.

— _instead?_

And all Mickey can think after that, before sleep rushes over him, driven by the comforting warmth of Ian’s body, is, _Oh._

 _Oh shit_.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [read, reblog, & like on tumblr](http://missmichellebelle.tumblr.com/post/127494040305/gallavich-things-you-didnt-say-at-all)


End file.
